As a child, your parents forced you to memorise an entire encyclopedia...

"As a child, your parents forced you to memorise an entire encyclopedia?" asked my therapist.

Encyclopedia Brittanica, 15th edition, 1974, three volumes. It was Mortimer Adler's attempt to, "systemise all knowledge". He was a blatant racist, when asked in a 1990 interview why his Great Books of the Western World list did not include any black authors, he said simply, "They didn't write any good books." Prat. It worries me that his work is stuck in my head. With a focussed effort I respond, "Yes, they made me memorize an entire encyclopedia."

But I digress, I tend to do that...my parents were self made late in life, obsessed with me doing well. What better way to set me up than to make me learn everything they thought. They tested me at every meal.

"Can I have some ketchup mum?"

"Of course honey, but what's the longitude of Bratislava?"

"Erm, forty seven degrees and...6 minutes north." Out came The Book.

"Sorry sweetheart, it's nine minutes north."

"...can I not have any ketchup?"

"No honey, your chips are fine as they are." She'd say reaching for the sauce.

They weren't bad people, they only wanted the best for me, just misguided. I know a little bit about everything now, makes me popular in pub quizzes, however I know a lot about nothing.

I live in Brighton now. Population: one hundred and fifty five thousand nine hundred and nineteen. I live alone. I tried living in the country for a while, get some peace, but I couldn't keep all the latin names from bursting into my brain, flora and fauna growing and humping all over the place, racing for sun and berries, trampling all over each other. The city's no better, but I don't have to look at single minded wildlife anymore, humans at least destroy themselves in more interesting ways.

In normal conversation I try to be as vague as possible, pushing the facts back down into the black of my mind. People think I'm arrogant or stoned, but the alternative just outright unnerves them so I can live with it. It means my friends are somewhat shallow though. My girlfriend thinks I'm the strong silent type. When I do say something it's always, "Wicked smart!"

It does take the zing out of sex though. "Sperm, male haploid cells containing half the random DNA recipe race down the uterus to the Ovum or egg, the female haploid cell containing the other random half of the recipe. Each egg is approximately 43 times larger than sperm cells. Unlike sperm ovum are finite, numbering around 400,000 when a woman reaches puberty, with around 1000 dying every month. Gestation lasts approximately 37 weeks and up until week 24 the fetus only has a 50% survival rate outside the womb. All fetuses initially develop gills; vestigial remnants of evolution until human DNA kicks in and they develop no further. Fish babies. Better hope the condom doesn't break. Condoms have been used for around 400 years, the original being sheep intestines, or turtle shell glans caps in Japan..."

"Honey? Honey?!" I look at her, focussing, remembering where I am, "Honey you zoned out, you haven't said anything for five minutes. What's wrong?"

"Flashback. 'Nam." The Viecong were actually a Vietnimh sect renamed by the US to aid propaganda.

"'Nam?"

"You weren't there."

Relationships can be tough.

Every so often I walk to the country, find a cliff and yell as many facts as I can, vomiting them out of my system. It can take hours until I'm spent, roaring myself hoarse, tasting blood, can't talk for days, no conversations, no questions. Lying panting on a hill I breath easy for twenty minutes, wind rushing over my skin, that stuff on the outside of my body, what does it do? System error, unable to retrieve data. I crash my own system - peace. It was lying there that I got the idea.

The first time went pretty well. Walking into the bar I spotted an ideal candidate: skin head, not too big, waiting alone for friends. I walked straight up and pushed him, I expected him to hit me immediately but I guess this just hadn't happened to him before. He blinked at me. I pushed him again and called him a puff. Right arm pulls back, locks into position, aim calibrated, the arm pistons forward leading with the shoulder, connects with temple, you know 37% of broken fingers are a result of punching someone. I hit the ground and try think of Bratislava's GDP...nope, nothing. He walks off disgusted, I take it in intensely, not analyzing a thing, just a man walking away from someone he punched in the head. I grin to myself and enjoy the growing warmth on the side of my head.

I stood up twenty minutes later having been carried to the pavement by bouncers. My balance was a bit off but I was hooked, heh, right hooked. The next one didn't go so well though, same set up, but on his second punch (this guy was more aggressive) he slipped on a beer bottle and cracked his head, hospitalized for a month. I lay gawking, right eye swelling fast. People saw it, knew I hadn't floored him, but picking fights isn't socially responsible behaviour. And that's how I ended up talking to the counselor: compulsory court sentence.

"As a child, your parents forced you to memorize an entire encyclopedia?"

"...Yes, they made me memorize an entire encyclopedia."

"You poor thing, tell me about it."

"That's asking a lot, you know how much is stuck in my head? How many volumes?"

"That's fine, I love to learn. I'll stay as long as it takes." She smiles, a slight blush.

"Whatever you say doctor"

"Kate, call me Kate."

"OK Kate, let me tell you about Bratislava."

Sitting on the edge of a cliff...legs dangling...

Sitting on the edge of a cliff...legs dangling. It'd be easy to fall. A couple of seconds of free-fall, and a prayer the fall kills you instantly. Good job I'm not suicidal, "Ha Ha!"

I stand up, flick my cigarette butt over the edge and immediately bump into someone skinny...tall...grinning...without lips.

"Hello" beams the stranger.

I wheeze out the words, "Hello...Death."

"Now, I've got you down for a 3:15 appointment." He pulls out a clipboard chirpily from inside his robe, "Red tape, can't get away from it, especially in my line of work. Now if you could just sign here please." He hands me the clipboard.

"...How?"

"Sorry?"

"(Cough) How do I die?"

"You slipped I'm afraid, fell to your death."

I turn around, staring incredulously down the cliff, "No I didn't!"

"Ah yes, well our policy is to register people a minute before death, saves people the actual pain of dying. Then our controllers take over and your body does what it's supposed to do. Less trauma that way. Aids the transition."

"But who says I fall to my death?!"

"Fate. It's all scripted I'm afraid."

"I don't believe it - I reject fate!"

He straightens up, his mood shifts "...I could just push you."

"..."

"Good, then we're agreed." He rolled a black sleeve up his bony arm and checked his watch, an old school Casio, "Time of death, 3:15pm. Sign here please." His skeletal finger tapped the dotted line at the bottom of the clipboard.

"Can the smoking not just kill me?"

"We've been over this. You know I'm really not against pushing you. Besides, death isn't the end, you've got years ahead of you." I stare at him, mouth gaping. He sighs a tired sigh, somehow. His rib cage clatters as he straightens back up, "This will all be explained in the induction session, now, if you can please just SIGN HERE."

I bring the pen up to literally sign my life away, "WAIT! I challenge you to a game of chess!"

"Fine." He took the clip board off me, put it back inside his robe, snatched the pen from my hand, and pushed me off the cliff.

Before I knew it I smashed on the bottom, no chance to pray for a quick death. Thankfully it was. I laid staring at the sky feeling numb, a skeletal face looked down at me, holding out a hand. He pulled me to my feet. Staring at my own body I felt insubstantial.

"Time of death, bugger, 3:17. Cause of Death...fall from cliff edge." He glared at me, or at least pointed his face at me and handed over a pen. "Sign here please."

Glasses: there are hundreds, each filled with red wine...

Glasses: there are hundreds, each filled with red wine. There's no way to tell which is the one with the poison in it. No way at all.

It was a good harvest last year, those grapes have been fermenting and now, one year on, the wine's ready for bottling.

Things were going great, until yesterday. I was looking at the post and enjoying my morning coffee when I opened the unmarked envelope and there it was. A promise, not a threat, that the writer of the letter had poisoned a batch of barrels.

If we loose this year's wine it'll ruin the company. I refuse to let that happen, I built this place from the ground up.

So I put out an offer to the workers. A taste test: high risk, high reward. I explained the situation to the ten who came forward and have already paid them for their silence.

The next morning we were there, the five who kept their nerve and me. As an act of goodwill I stepped up first and raised a glass, suddenly reminded of my own mortality as I stared into the deep red. I gulped it down before I lost my nerves. Lips tingling. Was that the wine or the poison? For a whole minute no-one moved, no-one breathed. The only sound in the silence was the occasional creak of wood from the rows and rows of barrels.

I turned gravely, "C'est bonne."

The men shifted uncomfortably. Most were in their fifties, one in his early twenties. I guess money must be hard for him.

And so we drank, glass after glass, each of us seeing our life flash before our eyes before breathing a sigh of relief. After a time it felt like there was an extra person in the tomb like cellar. Death had joined us, waiting patiently.

And valiantly, with each quiet act of bravery unknown to the outside world, we got roaring drunk.

I woke up in bed, Phillipe snoring on the sofa. Maybe we should've just taken sips. The sunlight in my eyes felt like daggers. I tried to stand only once, my spinning head was having none of it. On my chest was an unopened envelope, the same kind as the one that had caused all these problems in the first place. A scrap of paper and a photo fell out, a picture of my brother Simon back in Conneticut, grinning. On the paper there were just two words. As I read them a reluctant grin spread across my own face.

'April Fools'

Fireworks, dancing. People flood the city...

Fireworks, dancing. People flood the city. "What's happening?" he asks - no answer, everyone knows. But he doesn't. He really doesn't.

Today's the end of the world and everyone's having a party.

No-one invited him.

The forest fire flickered on the horizon...

The forest fire flickered on the horizon. Jake went inside and fetched the gasoline. "Trust me," he told me, "this is for the best."

Funnily enough I didn't trust him, but he wouldn't listen. You see Jake thought he'd found a way out. With the credit crunch our house in the country was now worth nothing.

So he came up with an idea. We fake our deaths in a house fire. Two people caught unaware in a forest fire, trapped inside the burning building, burnt to dust. Then our house and, get this, life insurance pays out to our next of kin.

We then transfer the money from Murial's account. Bless her we know all her details and she wouldn't know what had happened. But we'll leave her something behind, to help her out, make things a bit comfier for her.

Then we get fake aliases and throw it all to the wind.

Inspired, I'll give him that, but risky. But then again that's what I've always liked about Jake, his devil may care attitude. I knew he felt the same. And his silhouette in the red light, dancing the gasoline around in the night, made me smile. This was adventure like we'd always dreamed of.

The man in the navy uniform hangs around the village...

The man in the navy uniform hangs around the village. We notice these things. No-one knows who he is. Or where he's staying. But I have a theory.

You see no-one else in the village noticed when more birds appeared behind the forest. I did. I always walk about there, looking for egg shells and old nests. Gathering all the wool the sheep leave on the fences and putting it all at the bottom of the trees to help the birds out. Everyone in the village only cares about the pub and the gossip.

I never really noticed the scarecrow until it was gone. Never really paid it much mind. But now that man's appeared the scarecrow's all I can think about.

I wonder how it happened. Did he see me? Out there where no-one goes.

Making a dress for the princess. The pinnacle of your career...

"Making a dress for the princess. The pinnacle of your career. Oh my dear your mother would be so proud."

"I know she would. But I don't think she'd be happy. You know, I don't really want dress making to be my career."

"Nonsense. With those wonderous hands you'll do no other thing."

"But I like baking. I used to really want to be a baker."

"My dear the decision is completely out of your hands, because as we know those aren't your hands."

"I never wanted this."

"You're lucky the old witch could do what she did you ungrateful child. Happily it turned out the previous owner was quite talented. You think you could have been a baker before? With those hideous...appendages."

"Well, no. But mum used to sometimes let me bake when it was just the two of us. She never minded the flipper--"

"Enough! Don't talk about those horrible things! Do you not think it's already enough of a shame on the family. Your mother, courting that creature."

"He wasn't that bad."

"And what would you know? He scarpered as soon as she was pregnant with you. That knave."

"Mum liked him."

"And a lot of good that did her. No he left, galavanting around the ocean."

"Auntie?"

"...what?"

"Is he still out there somewhere? Do mermen live forever--"

"Enough! Enough! Now you're making this dress for the princess and you should be thankful at least one part of you isn't completely useless. Now I will send for you at six for dinner. Be sure to wear the clothes I picked out for you."

"...yes auntie."